Boiled Eggs

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From deviled eggs to coloring eggs, I’ve boiled hundreds of eggs in my lifetime and I suspect you’ve made your share as well. However, I learned a couple of useful tips from The Fannie Farmer Cookbook. Perhaps these will also be helpful to you.

Firstly, for any boiled egg, piercing the large end of the egg before cooking releases the pressure that can crack the shell. You can pierce this with an egg piercer or use a needle. I don’t own an egg piercer so I used a needle.

Unfortunately, the hard-boiled egg still cracked a little.

[image error]Secondly, adding the egg to the water varies between soft-boiled, medium-boiled, and hard-boiled eggs. I had always placed the eggs in cold water and then turned on the burner.

Thirdly, fill the kettle with enough water to cover the egg.

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For soft-boiled eggs—Wait until the water is gently simmering to add the egg on a tablespoon. The recipe calls for cooking the egg 3 – 4 minutes for softly-set whites and runny yolks. I cooked mine for 3½ minutes and then submerged it in cold water to halt the cooking process. It was very hard to peel against the very soft egg whites and the yolk quickly ran over the plate.

[image error]For coddled or medium-boiled eggs—Wait until the water is gently boiling to add the egg on a tablespoon. The recipe calls for cooking the egg 4 – 5 minutes for firm opaque whites and soft yolks. I cooked mine for 4½ minutes and then submerged it in cold water to halt the cooking process. It was still hard to peel against the soft egg whites and the yolk was runny not soft.

[image error]For hard-boiled eggs—Place the egg in enough water to cover it and then bring it to a boil. Simmer for 12 minutes. Immediately submerge it in cold water. Overcooked eggs, though fine to eat, develop an unappetizing dark ring that diners will see instead of a pretty yellow yolk. As noted above, piercing the shell didn’t prevent small cracks on this one yet it peeled easily. It gave the firm yolks and whites that signify a hard-boiled egg.

For my taste and preference, I’d cook the medium-boiled eggs about a minute longer and it’d be just about perfect.

Enjoy!

-Sandra Merville Hart

Sources

Revised by Cunningham, Marion and Laber, Jeri. The Fannie Farmer Cookbook, Alfred A Knopf Inc., 1983.